Secondhand Charm (7 page)

Chapter 15

Freddie Bell hollered a last call for any taking passage on
The White Dragon
. Aidan all but carried me up the steps. We skidded down the slip and up the gangplank.

“Oh, it’s you,” Freddie said without joy. “Listen. For those as don’t pay full, there’s the poop deck. Fine night like tonight, there’s music and revelry. You can make do.”

I didn’t know a poop deck from a spanker sail, but we followed the direction he pointed, working around swarms of sailors and bales of rope thicker than my leg. There was indeed music. A thin old man perched on a barrel, sawing out a jig on a battered fiddle. Couples had already begun swinging each other around. Swaying lantern light made the whole scene merry. We leaned against the railing to watch.

I’d heard sailors grew starved for female company out on the ocean. Three different ones whistled at me. What passed for manners in country towns didn’t seem to apply here.

The ship, when it had left the harbor and spread its full sails to catch the winds, began to roll underfoot. The strange sensation delighted me, and I spread my feet wide to find my balance. Aidan, alas, closed his eyes and clutched at the railing, his great knuckles turning white.

“What’s the matter, Aidan?”

He didn’t open his eyes. “Nothing,” he said. “Some son of a sailor I am.”

“Do you need something to drink?”

“Just tell me when we get there.”

“If I may be so bold?”

I turned to see a cheerful red-haired young man bowing and beckoning me to dance with him. I hesitated, then held out my elbow and let him lead me to join the dancers.

“Is that your brother with you?” The young man nodded toward Aidan.

Oh, dear. If I said Aidan was my husband, how would it look, dancing with strangers? On the other hand, if he wasn’t my husband, I could receive more unwelcome attentions.

“Thank you for the dance.” I released his arm. “It warmed me considerably.” I went to Aidan and leaned closer into him than I intended. The young man shrugged and moved on.

That was a relief. I ought to have stepped away from Aidan’s side, but the night winds whipping around the sails were bitter cold.

Aidan’s eyelid opened a crack. “You slay men by the dozens wherever you go, Evie.”

“That’s Mrs. Moreau to you, laddie,” I said. “And stop talking rot. I do no such thing.”

“If you’re Mrs. Moreau, then no more dancing with strangers.” His smile gave him away.

“Feeling better, I take it?”

“Getting used to it. I’d still rather be on dry land.”

“I’m not sure I would. Look.”

Water churned in the wake of the ship’s stern. It spread two blades of white-capped spray from either corner of the ship. The black water stretched forever, except where the dark shore blotted out the stars to our left. Hanging low over the horizon, painting a shimmering silver ribbon all the way to
The White Dragon
, was the moon.

Was there ever such a perfect sight in all creation as this?

Did the moon make the sea this lustrous every night, and here I’d only just discovered it?

Peace settled over me, a kind of peace I couldn’t explain.

“It’s extraordinary, Aidan,” I said. “Here, in this moment, I feel I’ve come home.”

“Do you?”

Aidan’s face was tilted toward mine, his brown eyes watching me closely. Well, of course his face was tilted down. The lad was a head taller than me, at least. And yet … 

I forgot about the moon.

The air he breathed, how it filled his chest, and emptied out again, warm, the soft sounds it made rushing past his mouth … 

Fascinating thing, breath. I could use Aidan as a scientific study.

I felt warm, despite the wind. Or was I still standing too close?

Aidan didn’t seem to mind.

“Evie?”

“Hmm?”

“Chick-chick-chick-eeet!”

From out of nowhere a furry form leaped onto Aidan’s head, snatching his hat and flinging it out into the sea. I shook myself, as if I’d woken from a dream. We reached for the little pest, but it leaped away faster than we could snatch, peeling back its lips and baring ghastly teeth.

Laughter broke out among the other passengers on the poop deck. The music had stopped, and the monkey’s owner stepped forward.

“Your creature doesn’t like me much,” Aidan told the man.

“Meet Deuce,” the man said. The monkey did a flip. “He’s a wicked imp, but he’ll amaze you with his tricks.” He laid his hat on the deck. “Deuce needs to pay for his crimes.”

People clapped as the monkey did more flips, walked on its hands while carrying a cup of wine with its feet, and guessed which hand held a button. Pennies fell into the hat, but I was more curious about the man than his pet. What was he discussing with the
scarred
man from the coach?
Hold back, Evie,
I warned myself.
It’s no crime to have scars or monkeys.
But something felt wrong. This man, genial though he was, felt false to me. The woman kept her distance.

“You folks want to see some animals?” a tall sailor said. “Oy! Bob! Bobby Natch!”

A reply came from somewhere in the tall riggings.

“Bring your crew,” the sailor yelled. “We’ve got some here ’at wants to see it.”

The sailor called Bobby Natch, a much-wizened older man with very few teeth, appeared with a parrot on one shoulder, a three-legged cat at his feet, and a wicker basket. The parrot favored us with language I dare not repeat, and the cat hissed at the monkey, then climbed to the top of a long pole where he sat yowling at us. Many men found this amusing.

Then Bobby Natch opened his basket. “Stand back, stand back, ladies and gents.”

At first nothing happened. Then a shape appeared, small, triangular. It tilted, swayed, then slipped over the edge of the basket, drawing a thick, winding, swelling body behind it.

“Snake!”

Women shrieked. My dance partner made no bones of scurrying off the poop deck. All the while the snake kept pouring itself out of the basket, and Bobby Natch cackled with delight.

“That’s a sand viper,” he said. “Three feet long. Annoy her, and it’s the last thing you’ll do.”

“Why would you keep such a creature?” a woman cried.

For the fun of scaring us, I imagined. “Rats,” said Bobby. “This lady kills three times the rats as old Puss. Rats bring disease. So my mates and me call her ‘the Doctor.’ ”

Aidan nudged me. “Stand behind me, Evie,” he whispered. “My boots are thick.”

“I’m all right,” I said, fingering my snakebite charm, and wondering if I believed in it. “Snakes don’t bother me.”

“Now, now, folks,” Bobby said, “you don’t have nothing to fear from the Doctor. Leave her alone, she’ll leave you alone. Ain’t she purty?”

She
was
beautiful. Her amber eyes reflected lantern light like two yellow moons. A symmetrical zigzag of dark scales traced down her muscular back. She coiled herself in a neat pile and surveyed everyone’s ankles.

A chill wind blew across the ship, whipping the sails. Bobby Natch and the other sailor studied the sky. The stars in the west had been blotted out by clouds.

“Chick-chick-eeet!”

The monkey, perched on his master’s shoulder, chattered at the sand viper. She raised her head to search for the sound. Bobby Natch, wearing a leather glove, stooped to retrieve his snake, but the monkey leaped down and hissed at her. She swerved her neck back and forth menacingly.

“Get that thing away if you want to keep it,” ordered Bobby, and the monkey trainer reached for the little pest.

He saved his monkey, though
he
was a moment too late. The sand viper, striking like a spring-loaded arrow, hurtled across the deck and sank its teeth into the monkey tamer’s wrist.

Chapter 16

Bobby Natch gripped the viper’s head at the jaws, pulled it off the man’s arm, and stuffed her back into her basket. He gave the man a mournful shake of his head, then scuttled off the poop deck and disappeared into the bowels of the ship.

The two bites leered like narrow red eyes from the monkey tamer’s wrist. The wind whipped the sails, sending spray into our worried faces.

I came forward and took his hand. “Get me strips of cloth,” I said to a sailor. “And a blanket for this man to lie down on.”

“ ’Oo’s she think she is?” one sailor asked another.

“Get her what she asks for,” Aidan said, as I coaxed the man to sit. “She knows things.”

If only I did! From what I’d read in my father’s books, I knew the procedure would be to slit the bite wound across with a sharp blade, then suck as much blood out as you could.

I might have only moments to spare before the venom took hold, but I couldn’t bring myself to cut the man further, nor to suck his blood into my mouth.

It wouldn’t work anyway,
I thought.
How could it?
But who was I to argue with Father’s books? Then again, even the books admitted that the method rarely worked.

Luck charm, snakebite charm, both of you, help me now.

The sailor arrived with a blanket and cloths. The deck pitched underneath my knees.

“Sir,” I said, “please lie flat on your back.” This was what came to my mind, and I seized upon it, grateful for any idea at all. Was half of medicine seeming confident that you knew what to do? If the patients believed you could help, could that save their lives? Pray heaven it was so!

The monkey man was too frightened to protest. His chest rose and fell rapidly, but not, I thought, with actual difficulty breathing. Just with fright.

I placed my hands on his ribs. “Sir,” I said, “listen to me. You must remain calm.”

Still he panted like a horse just off a run.

“Slow your breathing. Lie very still. It could make all the difference.”

His face, now pale, trembled. I pushed back his sleeves, held his wounded arm high, and began cinching his arm just below the elbow with the strips. Not too tightly, but enough to discourage fluids from moving more through the flesh.

There we remained with his hand held high. The worst part was waiting. What would happen to his hand? His eyes? His heart, his breath? I tested him every few minutes to see if he could hear, see, or feel through both sides of his body, and if the injured hand still had sensation.

We waited. The moon was only a dim glow now behind the thick clouds, while the angry wind pushed us closer and closer to Chalcedon.

Oh, let me not see two victims die today. One was far more than enough.

I reached and took off my snakebite charm, draped it over the monkey trainer’s head, and settled the strange charm under his collar. The man’s watchful eyes never left my face. Minutes crawled, but every minute in which nothing changed gave me new hope.

“You’re a healer, you are,” a blond sailor said, crouching beside me and watching me with wonder. “I’ve heard of women like you. From the islands.”

Wind was now whistling through the sails. Massing clouds had swallowed all the stars, and the cold was becoming intense.

“Can someone bring this man another blanket?” I said. Then, to the sailor, “I’m not from any island. This is the first I’ve laid eyes on the ocean. But I hope you’re right about the healing.”

“Those island women,” a shorter sailor said, “they’re not healers. And she don’t look anything like them. They’re
snake charmers
.” He produced a wool blanket, which he dropped onto my patient’s chest.

“Snake charmers?” I said. “They’re from desert countries. Little men with flutes.”

“There’s them, too,” the man conceded, “with the cobras. I seen ’em in Zanzibar. But the island women, they’ve got snakes following ’em anywheres. Serpents for pets. Pity the poor fool that comes up against one of them.”

“Why?”

It was the first thing the monkey trainer had said since his bite, and I was glad of it. If something other than his own plight interested him, he must be calming down. Perhaps he would be all right.

“Put a spell on you, they do,” the sailor said, gesturing widely, his eyes dramatic. “Man can’t hardly resist the snake women, with their long, black hair. Go chasing the world over if one of ’em asks you to. Yer a slave for life to her wicked charms.”

“I hear they’re beautiful,” the blond sailor said. “Like mermaids.” He held his wrists in front of his chest, as if waiting to be shackled. “I don’t mind snakes. Sign me up for slavery!”

The short one cuffed him cheerfully. “Yer a fool. Always said so. They’ll own yer soul!”

“Better one of them than the devil!”

I checked my patient’s wrist again. The skin was soft, not taut with swelling, and the color seemed healthy.

“Can you feel it if I press here?” I touched different points along his hand, fingers, and arm, and his sensation was still strong. “Too soon to be certain, but it looks like you may not suffer any ill effects from this bite.”

He nodded, his face expressionless.

“A thank you for the pretty lady wouldn’t be amiss.” The blond sailor kicked his boot.

“Thank you.” A more dispassionate thanks I couldn’t imagine.

There was a loud
crack
as the sail nearest us flapped, looking likely to burst its knots. The wind no longer nudged us north, but blasted straight from the west. I pitched to one side as
The White Dragon
listed sharply toward shore. Spray hit my face and doused some of the lanterns. Bells began ringing, and the captain and Freddie began shouting orders to the crew. The sailors near me didn’t wait to be called twice, but sprang into action, taking straight to the riggings.

Aidan crouched beside me and hoisted me up by one arm. “Evie, come this way.”

My patient rose and ran off. I staggered after Aidan.

The wind lashed furiously. People fell and objects slid as the ship lolled back and forth in the waves. Rain began pelting the deck, making it impossible to see.

Aidan led me to the rearmost mast of the tall galleon. He wrapped my arms around it tightly. Then, standing directly behind me, he enfolded me in his tight embrace of the stout mast.

“Whatever happens,” he shouted over the gale, “don’t let go!”

I could barely breathe, trapped between the pine mast and Aidan’s ribs. He rested his chin on my head. It almost seemed he wanted to enfold and crush me, like a constrictor snake.

Snake. I wondered how the sand viper felt. Poor, frightened creature.

“Wind’s blowing us toward the shore,” Aidan shouted. “We’ll be dashed against the rocks. But if we’re lucky, there’s a chance we might make it to the shallow water.”

Lucky. No gypsy charm could bend nature that far.

The ship rocked drunkenly, wave after wave soaking us. Neither one of us could swim.

We were going to die.

My ears were full of the groaning ship, the screaming passengers, the shouting sailors, the roaring winds. Yet a strange quiet fell over me. The university, and everything I’d ever planned, faded like a chimera, and the past, my blessed past, filled my view. Sister Claire. Priscilla. Widow Moreau. And one, dearest of all.

“Aidan,” I cried, worming my head free enough to be seen and heard. “If you make it safe to shore”—I took a deep breath, for the words were bitter—“and I don’t, please, tell Grandfather how much I love him.”

Aidan let go of his grip around the mast and turned to face me, lifting my chin. His hair was plastered to his head, his face streaked with rain.

“Evie,” he said, “if either of us makes it to shore, or if we don’t … ”

I never heard the end of his sentence.

He bent and kissed me.